Call forpapers – International Seminar on the (In)stability in Guinea-Bissau(14/10/2022) In recentdecades Guinea Bissau has been identified as one case of state fragility inAfrica, plagued by pervasive neopatrimonialism with an outlook aggravated bythe activity of narcotraffic criminal networks. Fromindependence in 1973 to the first multi-party elections held in 1994, thecountry experienced a relative stable PAIGC rule, first lead by Luís Cabral andthen by João Bernardo Vieira who took power in a coup d’état in 1980. Vieirawould triumph in the first general elections in 1994 but would not see the endof his presidential term. In 1998 an army uprising lead to the firstGuinea-Bissau civil war and the ousting of the president in 1999. Ever sincethe civil war of 1998/99 the country is characterized by significant politicalinstability where, despite holding regular elections, there is significantpolitical violence in the form of political assassinations and coup d’états.This period is also characterized by a complex set of overlapping,nonhierarchical interventions by different foreign actors. Most significantbilateral state interventions occurred by Senegal in the civil war and byAngola in 2011/2012 with the Missão Militar Angolana na Guiné-Bissau (MISSANG).The most significant multilateral actor is ECOWAS, first with a mission duringthe civil war (ECOMOG), then with a mission to replace MISSANG from 2012 to2020 (ECOMIB), and it has just now been announced its return in the aftermathof the failed coup in February 2022. Alongsidethese initiatives there have been attempts at Security Sector Reform (SSR) bythe UN, EU and in the MISSANG and ECOMIB missions, while the UN has kept aPeacebuilding office in the country since the civil war up until 2020. Despitethese interventions, the country has not reached political stability, with themost recent attempt coup d’état foiled on the 1st of February of 2022.  Thisinstability prevents the country from overcoming structural and historicalchallenges which results that the social, economic and political indicators ofGuinea-Bissau are worse than other countries in the Sub-Saharan region. Forinstances, average income is less than half of the average PIB pc inSub-Saharan Africa in 2018 and Guinea-Bissau ranks 178 out of 189 countries inthe human development index. Thisseminar aims at taking stock of the state of the art of the explanations andunderstanding of the political instability in Guinea-Bissau. We welcomeresearch from different disciplinary perspectives and levels of analysis.Although grounded in political science we welcome research from an economic,historical, geographic, social or other perspective. Also, we are interested incovering dynamics of (in)stability at the systemic/regional level, the statelevel and the sub-state or individual level. The seminarwill be held in Portuguese and English in a hybrid format atOBSERVARE/Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (UAL) in Lisbon, Portugal, on the 14th ofOctober 2022. Presentations of papers can be done either on-site or online. A specialissue of JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations (SCOPUSQ4) will publish a selection of the papers presented. Deadlines: Presentationof proposals should be sent to seminarguineabissau@autonoma.pt with an abstract(300 word) and short biography (10 lines) by the 12th of June2022. Acceptedpapers will be informed by the 30th of June 2022. Full papers(6000 words) should be submitted by the 11th of September 2022.   Thisseminar is part of the project “Gestão e Prevenção do Conflito na Guiné-Bissau”funded by Camões, Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua and by the Cooperativa deEnsino Universitário (CEU)/UAL, organized and hosted at OBSERVARE/UAL andco-organized with Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). Cumprimentos   Ricardo Real P. de Sousa   ProfessorAssociado / Associate Professor – Universidade Autónoma deLisboa (UAL) Professor Convidado / InvitedProfessor – Universidade da Beira Interior (UBI) Coordenador do Doutoramento doDepartamento de Relações Internacionais da UAL / Coordinator of the Doctoral Program of the Department of International Relations at UAL   Personalweb page (eng) Last publications: with Oliveira, Gilberto Carvalho de(2021)Conflict Resolution Interventions in the Conflict Cycle. Working Paper CEsA CSG185/2021 (pp. 1-65) (2021) Intelectual Pillars of the ConflictResolution Field. (2020) AsIntervenções de Resolução de Conflitos no Ciclo do Conflito. (2020) Os Níveis deIntensidade no Ciclo do Conflito. (2021) “ConflictResolution – Actors, Dynamics and Cases”.  New York: Nova Publishers, United States ofAmerica. ISBN: 978-1-53619-497-5 (2020) "Resolução de Conflitos – Estudos deCasos". Curitiba: Juruá Editora, Brasil. ISBN 978-65-5605-223-6